


Flore Luna

by strawberrysunflower



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Bookshop, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Magic, flower shop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29357340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberrysunflower/pseuds/strawberrysunflower
Summary: It’s been eighteen months since Dan returned to the Wizarding world, and he’s making real strides. He’s living in his own tiny studio flat. He has a job in a failing bookshop. He’s relearning spells that kids as young as eleven have already mastered.And he’s developed an unhealthy grudge on the irritating, black-haired florist across the alley.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 35
Kudos: 81





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!! I know this sort of concept has already been done several times but I’m just going to leave my offering at the door and hope you like it anyway lol
> 
> Disclaimer 1: although this is set in the HP world, I'm not going to make any reference to the events or characters in HP cause I can't be arsed lmao (like I know Phil would have started school the same year that the Battle of Hogwarts took place but I pretend I do not see it luvs)
> 
> Disclaimer 2: JK Rowling is a TERF and I do not support the vile, hateful things she believes about trans people!! To offset the ickyness of delving into anything to do with JKR, and because I am in a financial place to do so, I have made a donation to Mermaids, a charity that supports trans/non-binary/gender-diverse young people ([click here](https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/) to find out more about the important work they do!) 💕
> 
> Disclaimer 3: as always, this is fictional and the characters in here are simply that - characters. I don't claim to know or represent real life Dan and Phil in my writing.

There is a fly buzzing above Dan’s head, dancing ever higher away from his outstretched fingers. At first it was a novelty, to share his lunch break with something other than dust and reams of parchment and silence. Now it’s just annoying.

Dan leans down towards the floor, eyes trained on the fly as it pirouettes around the glowing orb in the centre of the ceiling. His fingers brush against wood, and they curl around the handle: oak, thirteen inches, reasonably supple. He adjusts his grip, recites the correct intonation in his head, then points his wand at the fly and speaks.

“Immobulus.” 

The fly stops, as if trapped in amber. It floats dreamily across the room, unable to flap its wings or make that irritating buzz anymore. Dan sits back with a pleased smile. He’s not tried that spell on a living thing since Sixth year, so it’s nice to see that all his practice on his washing machine and the Newton’s cradle that sits on his desk has paid off. 

At least, it’s nice to begin with. Then guilt begins to gnaw at his stomach. Poor fly; it didn’t mean to get stuck down in this basement with a giant hell-bent on freezing it in place. Dan sighs and grabs his moleskine notebook off the nearby table.

 _F, F_ … Dan flips through the pages until he gets to the spell he’s after, written in his own untidy, left-handed scrawl. 

> **_Finite Incantatem_ **
> 
> **_To terminate or reverse the effects of spells_ **
> 
> **_Pronounced:_ ** **_fi-NEE-tay in-can-TAH-tem_ **
> 
> **_Hand movement: shield shaped, left to right, top to bottom_ **

Dan licks his lips. He’s never been good at this one - sometimes his counterspells end up only partly working, or working for small periods of time. Once, after half a bottle of wine, he decided to magically colour his own hair, just for a laugh, just to see what it would do. It was all fun and games until the next morning when Dan tried to reverse the hot pink curls back into their normal brown, only succeeded in turning them a washed-out candyfloss colour, and had to make the shameful trek to Superdrug for hair dye. 

Dan clears his throat and angles his wand at the fly as it drifts slowly around. “Finite Incantatem.” 

Nothing, beyond a few pathetic sparks. With a frown, Dan tries again, this time putting more emphasis on certain sections.

“Fi- _ni-_ te Incan- _ta-_ tem.”

The fly makes a small, sad buzz and flaps its wings for three seconds, then falls still once more. _Shit_. Dan’s thigh bounces up and down, and he nibbles at his lip hard enough to taste blood. All he wanted to do was practice, not irreparably damage the poor creature. Just as he’s gearing himself up for a third attempt, the small bell above the door that leads back up to the shop tinkles into life. Somebody must have just walked in. Dan winces and looks up at the fly with what he hopes is forgiveness.

“Sorry, mate. I’ll try and sort you out later. Nox.”

The glowing orb above his head is extinguished, and Dan clatters up the stairs to attend to his first customer all day. 

An old wizard in amethyst robes is peering at a collection of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics written by mystical high priests of times gone by. If he were any more stooped, he’d be in danger of falling face first into the shelves. 

It still sends Dan reeling, moments like this. Wizards. Out in the open, swanning about in long jewel-toned cloaks and pointed hats, just being _wizards_ without a care in the world. By contrast, Dan’s in black jeans and an oversized, flowy button-up shirt. He’s not sure which option fills him with more dread: having a genuine set of wizarding robes hung up in his IKEA flatpack wardrobe, or working in a magical fucking bookshop decked out in H&M’s finest.

Dan clears his throat loudly and the man turns and bares a set of crumbling, yellow teeth at him in what Dan assumes is a smile.

“Ah - is Aelfdene off on his travels again?”

“He sure is,” Dan smiles, rocking anxiously on his heels. “Bermuda. Should be back by spring. I’m holding down the fort until then.”

The old wizard lets out a rattling chuckle and turns back to the books he was browsing through. Dan treads across the mottled, creaking floorboards and glances out of the window at the alley before him. Or at least he tries to glance out of the window - there’s a layer of grime so thick it makes the sky look brown. _Scourgify_ , he thinks he needs, but Dan’s fairly certain he’s got an old dish-rag and a bottle of Windolene at his flat that would do the trick just as well. At least there’s no danger of him accidently putting the window through that way. 

There’s movement on the other side of the road. Then again, there always seems to be something going on over there. Abernathy and Pickwick, the world’s dingiest bookshop, is located in possibly the quietest spot in all of Diagon Alley. On the right sits Rose-Marie’s Herbs and Hexes, which sells crystals, tarot packs and loose tea leaves, always smells of burnt sage, and only seems to attract the occasional hag. On the left is Fizzlesticks’ Finest, a once grand-looking shop that has been empty and abandoned for as long as Dan’s worked here. 

And opposite resides The Enchanted Florist. Where Abernathy and Pickwick is dark and drab, The Enchanted Florist is a green and yellow eyesore. Where Dan will deal with one or two customers per day if he’s lucky, there seems to be a constant stream of magical folk ducking into the shop across the street for plants and bulbs and flowers and seeds. 

Where Dan tries to keep his place tidy and organised, Philip Lester, the current shopkeeper of The Enchanted Florist, leaves chaos in his wake. 

He’s outside now, tending to a pot of writhing snapdragons sat by the store entrance. Because that’s exactly what you wanted to be greeted with while you’re doing a spot of casual browsing: a great, big bastard plant nipping at your legs.

The wizard in the shop with him lets out a small, wheezy cough and Dan jumps, startled. He whips away from the window and blinks at the man, who is holding a stack of books he almost can’t see over. 

“Oh God, I’m sorry, let me-” Dan starts and holds out his arms, as though about to physically catch any falling books that might slip from the teetering tower. The man just chuckles and sets them on the counter, before pulling a small tartan handbag out from under his robes. 

“I’m fine, son, they’ll fit in here. How much do I owe you for this lot?”

After an exchange of Sickles and Knuts (and Dan is once again grateful for the magical currency crib sheet he stuck to the back of the desk), Dan watches the old man as he totters across the alley towards The Enchanted Florist. Phil is still outside, now watering a tall, evergreen vine snaking up the wall and over the main doorway. Somehow the watering can slips out of his hands and lands with a dull thunk on the cobbles, sending water gushing out into the street. Phil just laughs, picks the can back up, then greets the elderly wizard like an old friend: all wide smiles and jovial banter and a hand on the back to usher him inside the shop. 

Dan rolls his eyes. He could imagine the reaction he’d get if he lurked outside of Abernathy and Pickwick, dropping things all over the place and grinning like a moron and all but dragging people in through the front door. There’d be a padded room in St Mungo’s waiting for him.

Just before he disappears inside, Phil glances over his shoulder and catches Dan staring through the window like a disapproving old battleaxe. He raises one arched eyebrow at him, jerks his hand in a sarcastic wave. It’s enough to send a jolt of frustration coursing through Dan’s veins, until all he can do is huff and storm away towards the basement stairs. He’s got a frozen fly he needs to sort out.

○☆☾☆○ ○☆☽☆○ 

Dan never knew Phil in school, but he certainly knew _of_ him. Everyone knew of Philip Lester.

The whole Lester clan were infamous names in Hogwarts. Phil’s older brother had already left by the time Dan arrived, tiny and shaking with nerves in his too-big robes, but Martyn Lester was a local legend in the Gryffindor common room. One of the best Chasers of all time, and the mastermind behind a huge illicit rave held at midnight in the Astronomy tower, right under the teachers’ noses. It sounded to Dan like he would have been expelled ten times over if he wasn’t such a loveable rogue.

But Phil, for all his apparent efforts at trying to keep his head down, always seemed to be at the centre of any calamity. The explosion in Potions, when Dan was in his First year, that sent shockwaves throughout the entire dungeons and left a handful of Fourth year students with singed eyebrows? Phil. The blast-ended skrewt that escaped after somebody forgot to lock the paddock back up during Care of Magical Creatures? Phil. Even the off-kilter spell which burst a cannonball-sized hole into the wall of the Great Hall during a NEWT Charms exam was most definitely Phil (although it was never officially proven).

Dan could not have been a more different student if he tried. He was a hard-worker, still full of wide-eyed wonder at the magical world after eleven years of not knowing of its existence, and he was always a very pleasant boy to have in class. But mediocre. Average. Forgettable. Dan reckons he could bump into one of his old professors, or the boys he used to share the Gryffindor dormitory with, and not be given so much as a passing glance.

Dan sighs, flips the pages of his notebook until he reaches R, and picks up the fountain pen resting on the counter (his hatred for quills knows no bounds, and he’s surprised the side of his hand is not still ink-stained after years of dragging it across his school work and ruining it irreparably). He glances back at his hulking, tattered, second-hand version of _The Beginners Guide to Transfiguration,_ cracked open in the middle, and finds the spell he wants to copy into his notes. _Reparifarge_ \- to reverse incomplete transformations. Dan has a sinking feeling he’ll need that one sooner or later.

Suddenly, the bell tinkles. Dan glances up at the front door, expecting to see somebody on the hunt for unusual literature, but there’s nobody. The shop is empty.

Then, all hell breaks loose.

A cat - or at least Dan thinks it’s a cat, it could be a miniature snow leopard - leaps up onto one of the shelves and hisses at him with such ferocity it makes Dan yelp. It throws its body across stacks of books, sending them toppling over with a loud thump across the wooden floor, and then scrambles with sharp claws up to another towering shelf, screeching and yowling, as though hell-bent on causing destruction. 

“Shit!” Dan yells, voice lost amongst the commotion, as he skids out from behind the counter. He doesn’t have a clue what to do. The beast clambers across volumes and manuscripts, tears at parchment and leather, its long tail swishing through the air and sending more books clattering to the ground so hard that Dan has to physically duck. In a panic, Dan pulls his wand from the waistband of his jeans and points it at the creature.

“Immobulus!” he shouts - the first relevant spell that comes to mind - and the feral cat freezes in place and falls to the ground before Dan has chance to catch it.

 _Now_ he’s truly fucked.

The creature has big, pointed ears and thick dappled-grey fur, and, bizarrely, a magenta collar around its neck. Dan frowns, inches forwards, wary of claws and fangs that could rip him to shreds should the spell fail. He fondles the silver nameplate until he can read the engravings in the shop’s dim light.

_Peach - if lost, return to The Enchanted Florist._

Of course.

With the help of a large empty cardboard box and all the upper body strength he can muster, Dan is able to contain the frozen cat for easy transportation. He’s seen it outside a few times, now that he thinks about it, skulking around Phil’s legs and shooting wary glares at anyone nearby. Dan hauls the box into his arms and storms across the street into The Enchanted Florist.

Everything is _green_. Plants of varying sizes sit on every available surface, hang from the ceiling in baskets, grow tall in pots on the floor; even the walls are a pale shade of mint. It’s bright too, so much so that Dan has to stop and blink for a moment, his vision blurring after spending so long straining his eyes in that dull, musty bookshop. 

Dan treads his way past trailing leaves and blooming buds and sharp, spiky grasses until he spots Phil slouching behind the counter. He’s in his own little world, forearms propped on the worktop, as he flips idly at a comic book and digs into a box of Every Flavour Beans. He pulls out a red one and is about to pop it into his mouth when Dan clears his throat loudly.

Phil jumps, lets out a small squeak of surprise, and drops the bean on the floor. It’s clear his well-rehearsed customer service greeting is on the tip of his tongue, until he realises who exactly is standing in front of him. Phil blinks at Dan, bemused, and asks, “Can I help you?”

Dan adjusts the heavy box so that it’s resting more comfortably on his hip. “Your… cat. Thing. It got into my shop and fucking destroyed the place.”

“Peach?” Phil frowns and glances around Dan, as if expecting it to materialise from behind his legs. “Where is she?”

“Uh.” Dan approaches the counter and places the box next to the comic book. “In here.” 

Phil, if possible, turns even paler than he already is. He undoes the box with slow, trembling hands, peers inside, makes a punched-out noise of despair from deep within his chest, and stares back up at Dan again.

“You killed her.”

“No I didn’t!” Dan squawks. 

“Then what the fuck did you do to her?”

“I had to freeze it. I didn’t know what else to do, it was going bonkers!”

“ _She_ was probably scared. She must have gone for a wander, walked back into your shop by mistake and panicked.” 

Phil picks the creature up out of the box with tender care that Dan didn’t realise he possessed. He adjusts her gently in his arms, grabs his wand from where it’s sat on the counter, and gives it a quick, silent wave. Like a princess emerging from a long slumber, the beast blinks her icy blue eyes up at Phil, then presses against his chest and purrs as if she is a genuine housecat and not a pint-sized vicious lion. Phil buries his fingers into her thick, shaggy fur and murmurs sweet reassuring nothings into her large ears.

Then, as if realising simultaneously that Dan is still hovering near them, both set their big, blue eyes on him in matching glares. The cat tenses up in Phil’s arms and starts hissing at Dan so violently that he has to take a nervous step back.

“Can’t you stop her from doing that?” 

“Kneazles get aggressive around people they don’t trust,” Phil says sharply, hitching her up so that she’s closer to his chest.

“Oh yeah?” Dan shifts from foot to foot, trying to come up with a biting insult to bat back. “Well… I don’t trust her either. Do you know how much damage she’s caused?”

Phil presses his lips together and sighs through his nose. Then, with an air of fake calm, he flashes Dan a strained smile, the type Dan himself has used on difficult customers. 

“I’m sorry she ruined your shop. Send me the bill and I’ll sort it.” He shrugs one shoulder, raises an eyebrow. “Anything else?”

Dan can feel the heat rising in his cheeks, and he jabs a flustered finger at the kneazle. “Yeah, just… just keep that fucking thing on a lead next time.”

“Duly noted. Have a nice day.” 

○☆☾☆○ ○☆☽☆○ 

Every morning, Dan catches the same bus from his flat in Newington to Charing Cross Road. It takes about half an hour on a good day, fifty minutes on a bad one (not that it really matters what time Dan opens up shop in the grand scheme of things).

On this particular morning, Dan somehow manages to snag the front seat on the top deck, so he’s able to watch London wake up in full panorama. It’s only just gone eight and already the streets are swarming with business people in suits, and rainbow-haired students slouching to morning lectures, and tourists taking snaps of red phone boxes and black cabs. Dan could apparate to work, sure - that would cut his commute time down to mere seconds, not to mention save him a fortune on his bus pass - but there’s something about the quiet peace he gets from the top deck of the 176 that he wouldn’t trade for all the magic in the world.

At least, most of the time it’s quiet peace. Today, however, his phone starts buzzing in his pocket. There’s only one person who would call him at the crack of sparrows for a catch-up.

“Daniel! Sorry for the early morning start, darling, but it’s been ages since we last spoke and I wanted to hear your voice,” his mother trills as soon as he answers the call. Dan hums, picks at a loose thread at the hem of his striped jumper. He loves his mum, really, truly does, but he always prefers a bit of pre-warning so he can steel himself to talk to her. 

“Yeah, sorry, I’ve been meaning to give you a ring. I’ve just been really busy.”

“You still working at the…” she pauses, and Dan doesn’t miss the way she sucks in a small breath before continuing. “At the shop?”

“Yeah, I’m still there. The owner’s away at the moment so I’m in charge. He goes travelling, like, three times a year for months at a time.”

“Why does he bother owning a shop then, if he’s always away?”

“Well, he goes travelling _for_ the shop. He sends back all these weird, specialist books that he’s been able to source around the world, and we sell them to people who would never get chance to read them otherwise,” Dan explains, tapping his fingernails against the yellow bar in front of the window. He doesn’t expect her to fully get it, but at least now she’s taking a mild interest in his life, rather than hastily changing the subject at the mere mention of magic. His mum clicks her tongue.

“Right. Well then. Sounds like a lot of responsibility. I’m glad to hear you’re still working hard.” And then, of course, the matter at hand that Dan knew was coming all along. She clears her throat and says, “It’s your dad’s birthday coming up. Should I actually go to the effort of including you in the restaurant reservation this time? Only we haven’t seen you since Christmas and I _would_ like to see my son’s face more than once a year.”

Dan sags back against the plastic seat. He’s seconds away from snapping at her _yeah, and look at how well Christmas went_ , but he clamps his mouth shut. It’s a good thing he had time to make coffee this morning.

Does he want to see his family for his dad’s birthday? No, is the short answer. Fuck no, is the slightly longer one. He knows exactly how it would go; conversation with his family is so repetitive he could set it to music. Anything to do with _the m-word_ would be off the table, lest someone overheard them. His dad would not-so-subtly hint that Dan should really get back on the horse and find a ‘real’ job. His gran would flap, concerned about whether he’s eating enough, or getting enough sunlight, or mixing with the wrong sort of people, given his new _lifestyle_ and all. 

God, the thought fills him with so much dread that Dan almost wants to stop the bus, jump off, and hurl himself into rush hour traffic.

“Daniel?” his mum’s voice jolts him out of his morbid thoughts.

“Sorry, Mum. I’ll, uh… I’ll let you know, yeah?” The bus pulls up to a red light, and Dan takes the opportunity to ring the bell signalling his departure. “I’ve got to go, I’m at my stop.”

“Alright, love,” his mum sighs. “Stay safe.” 

Dan shoves his phone into the depths of his bag and hops off the bus just in time to see the Leaky Cauldron shimmer into view. This has been his morning routine for the better part of a year now, and it still fills Dan with an intense rush of awe and nerves; it might be the impostor syndrome talking, but Dan is convinced that one day the brick wall entrance will realise he shouldn’t really be there and come toppling down onto his head like he deserves.

It’s not the most pleasant thought to start the day, but Dan still finds himself holding his breath and tensing his muscles as he taps the familiar pattern of mossy bricks with the tip of his wand. There’s always that second, that brief moment where they rumble and wobble and Dan near enough shits himself, but then they twist away to reveal the Alley, and Dan can breathe out in one long rush.

After making the long trek past crooked, jewel-coloured shop fronts and bustling people looking for early morning bargains, the next steps in his daily schedule is to unlock the bookshop, light the candles so he can at least see his hand in front of his face, and wait. Sometimes he breaks up the day by practicing spells that he’s still a little rusty on; sometimes he flips through the bizarrest books he can find in the ever-growing pile; sometimes he eats lunch early, then regrets it in the afternoon when his stomach is rumbling; sometimes he peers out of the shop window when he spots Phil pottering around, just to glare at him; and sometimes, on very rare occasions, Dan actually does his job and serves a customer.

The bell tinkles. Dan blinks at the stairs leading up to the shop floor, and then back at the scene in front of him. _Flagrate_ , he’d been practicing today - to burn words into midair. Dan decided to draw a penis. The foot-long fiery phallus crackles and flickers in the middle of the basement. 

“Hello?” a faint voice calls from above. Dan bites his lip, wafts his hands desperately at the crudely-drawn dick in some hopes of blowing it out. It just seems to burn brighter, as if mocking him. 

This’ll have to be a problem for future-Dan. Instead, Dan bounds up the stairs two at a time and skids into the main shop.

And there’s Phil, inspecting a collection of priceless Medieval illuminated scripts from the Outer Hebrides. Because of course. Of _course_ it's Phil, here to darken his doorway and ruin his afternoon. 

Phil glances up, flashes a nervous smile at Dan and holds his hands up in mock surrender. He’s wearing an oversized black sweater, printed with gaudy yellow moons, and the sleeves are rucked up to his fingers as if that’s supposed to make him look more charming or innocent. It just sets Dan’s teeth on edge.

“I come in peace,” Phil says with a slightly strangled chuckle. He glances behind Dan, as though expecting someone to follow him up the stairs. “Mr. Abernathy not around?” 

“Bermuda,” Dan replies bluntly, crossing his arms over his chest. Phil nods, rocks back on his heels, tugs at his sweater paws.

“Ah. I’ve heard it’s nice this time of year.”

The silence stretches on like a taut elastic band ready to snap. Phil has a streak of dirt down the side of his nose, and a few long scratches across his neck, startlingly pink and fresh against his pale skin. Dan almost wants to ask what happened, but that would imply he cares.

“D’you need something?” he asks instead with an impatient wave of his hand. “It’s just that I’m _very_ busy.”

“I’m after something specific. Only I’m not sure what it is.”

“Right. Helpful.”

Phil huffs and walks a bit closer towards Dan, his high-tops squeaking against the floorboards. “A friend of mine, Bryony - she’s a conservationist, works internationally looking after rare magical creatures and that. Well, she’s in Alaska at the moment, and she’s found something but she hasn’t been able to identify it. She says it’s injured and on its own, and she doesn’t know the community well enough yet to start hunting out magical folk that might be able to help her.”

“So…?”

“So I know Aelfdene has all sorts of weird things in here from around the world. I thought I could have a poke around, see if I could find a book or something about this creature.”

Dan deflates with a sigh, sagging back against the counter and dropping his arms. It’s a fairly noble cause, he supposes; Dan is willing to wave his own white flag of peace in the name of decency and animal welfare.

“What did she say it looks like?”

They search high and low in silence, on the hunt for a book about some sort of mythical ox-like creature from North America. Dan digs through big leather-bound volumes on ancient Celtic paganism, leafy manuscripts about Pacific Island spirits, handwritten journals from wizards past in languages he doesn’t understand. It’s a shame, in a way, that the bookshop is left to sit, ignored and unloved, in a darkened corner of the Alley - it really is an Aladdin’s cave of weird and wonderful literature.

And yet, there are still no books on magic buffalo.

“Found anything?” Dan asks after almost half an hour. Phil, who is sat cross-legged on the floor by the window, surrounded by an ever-growing pile of dusty tomes, shakes his head forlornly. Dan sighs and climbs down the ladder leading to the uppermost bookshelves, then wipes his sweaty hands on his jeans. “Look - there are shit-loads of books down in the basement, stuff from Aelf’s travels that I haven’t gotten around to putting away yet. Give me a day or two and I’ll have a poke about, see what I can come up with.”

Phil blinks up at him, confused, wary almost, like he’s waiting for the snarky comment to come. When it doesn’t, he nods slowly, pushes his black hair back off his forehead where it’s flopping into his eyes.

“Thanks, Dan. I appreciate it.” He hauls himself off the floor, wobbles amongst the array of books spread out around him. “Oh, and uh… I’m sorry. Y’know, for the other day with Peach. I didn’t mean to be such a wanker to you about it. I guess it just freaked me out so much that my paternal instincts kicked in.”

“In your defense, I _did_ use a freezing charm on your cat,” Dan shrugs with a small smirk. “Is she okay? I’m not exactly the world’s best wizard, I tend to balls my spells up a lot of the time.”

“She’s fine,” Phil replies, but Dan catches the way his eyebrows furrow, like he wants to pry more into that particular self-deprecating statement. Instead he steps carefully out of the sea of books, pushes his big, black-framed glasses up his nose, and heads to the door. He stops at the last second, hand on the doorknob; his startling blue eyes lock with Dan’s and a small, soft smile dances across his lips. 

“See you around, Dan.”

“Yeah. Yeah, see you.”

As promised, at six o’clock when he’s shutting up for the night, Dan clatters down into the basement to look for Phil’s book. The flagrate charm has finally burnt itself out into ash, Dan is relieved to see - he’s not sure how he would’ve explained that one to Aelfdene when he gets home. 

Dan prides himself on his meticulous organisational methods on the shop floor: everything is categorized into genres as best he can, then ordered alphabetically by author name, and every Monday he goes into the basement to grab two huge, hulking boxes of books and spends the better part of an afternoon stacking them in the right places. It’s the job he looks forward to all week, which might just be the most pathetic thing he’s ever admitted to himself. 

The basement, however, brings Dan out in a rash whenever he goes down to it. 

It’s dark, first of all, which is slightly terrifying; there’s no working light fixture, so Dan has to make do with the luminous ball he shoots from the end of his wand. Secondly, the whole room smells of damp and must, an overwhelming sickly stench that almost made Dan lose his breakfast the first time he came down here. He’s gotten used to it now - enough to choke down his lunch of sandwiches and a bag of Hula Hoops, anyway - but the permeating smell of spores and dust and binding glue still clings to his clothes when he gets home.

And the _books_. There are piles of them, stacked up as tall as Dan, everywhere he turns. Massive hardback volumes and tiny postcard-thin notebooks and loose pages of parchment Dan has no hope of finding a home for. He just knows that one day he’ll be down here practicing spells, and something will backfire so catastrophically it’ll send a tidal wave of books crashing down onto him and nobody will find his body for weeks. 

The only thing going for it is that down here it’s quiet. Peaceful. There are no prying eyes to judge him for relearning and fine-tuning spells that magical children as young as eleven should know. That, Dan supposes, is one saving grace.

With a sigh, Dan hitches his sleeves up to his elbows, points his wand at the ceiling and mutters, “Lumos.”

The end lights up, and with a flick of his wrist, the bright ball of pearlescent light forms an orb in the centre of the room. Dan smiles up at it, admiring it for a second, before glancing around the cluttered basement and raking his fingers through his curls. This might take a while.

Dan’s search lasts out for about an hour before he’s about ready to give up, his forearms aching from the weight of carrying books across the room. There’s a bus that’ll arrive at twenty past, so Dan allows himself five more minutes before giving up the ghost and trying again in the morning.

It’s at minute four that he spots it. A tiny, aged book with gold leaf across the covers, dull now after however many years stuck underneath Abernathy and Pickwick. On the front is a picture of a big Ox-like animal, with shimmering golden fur that actually seems to glow in the light. _The Re’em: Lifestyle and Anatomy_ is printed in looping font, and when Dan checks the inside cover, he finds it was first published in Canada. _Bingo_.

Dan all but races across the street to The Enchanted Florist, and is surprised to find the door is still open when he gives it an experimental push. Phil, however, is nowhere around; he must be out the back, tending to whatever insane flora and fauna he has growing behind the scenes. Dan is half tempted to tell him off about his lack of security when he sees him next. 

The sheer amount of wildlife still catches Dan by surprise. It’s a sensory overload of colours and scents and noises, from tiny pink and purple buds that smell of bubble-gum, to bright orange Birds of Paradise that loom over Dan’s head and squawk loudly when he goes to touch them. Dan jumps, startled, and makes his hasty way to the shop counter before he causes any more trouble.

He deposits the book on the worktop, and scrawls a small note on a strip of spare parchment on Phil’s desk: _found this in the basement - could be what you’re looking for?? hope it helps! dan :)_

Dan frowns at the smiley face his hand drew on its own accord. He’s half-tempted to scribble it out - he’s not the sort of person to leave smiley faces at the end of handwritten notes, especially not to someone like _Phil_ \- but he forces himself to leave it alone. Maybe he can extend that white flag of peace for just a little longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was intended to be a one-shot but it got away with me slightly so I've split it across two chapters so that people can enjoy at their leisure!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for this part: mild description of injury (broken bone)

When Dan reaches the end of his own instruction manual of spells, he flips to the beginning and practices from the top. Today he’s back to A again. 

> **_Aguamenti_ **
> 
> **_To produce a jet of water from wand tip_ **
> 
> **_Pronounced: AH-gwah-MEN-tee_ **
> 
> **_Hand movement: sideways s shape_ **

Dan swallows, cuts his hand across the air like the directions tell him to do. “Aguamenti.”

The water shoots out of his wand with such force he almost doesn’t land it in the bucket in time, sending puddles splashing across the stone floor. But, after a few seconds of intense jet-stream, the water slows to a calm trickle, before dribbling off into nothingness just as it threatens to overflow the bucket’s edges.

 _Getting there_. It’s a far cry from his first attempt, where Dan woke up one night dying of thirst but was too lazy to move, so tried to conjure some water into an empty glass on his bedside table and ended up exploding the whole thing. He still has the scar above his eyebrow from a rogue piece of flying debris.

The shop bell rings, so Dan sighs and hauls the bucket up the stairs - he might as well put the water to good use and make a start on cleaning those grotty windows, right after he’s finished sorting out whoever has just walked in.

There’s nobody about. There is, however, a large and rather stunning looking plant sitting on the counter. Dan frowns, deposits the heavy bucket on the floor, and walks over to it.

It’s big and bushy, a bit like a peace lily with its waxy green leaves and long-stemmed flowers. But it’s the flowers that set this plant worlds apart; the tawny yellow petals form a cup around what appears to be a golden sphere of light, each flower beaming like miniature suns in orbit of each other. The entire plant shines, illuminating the corner of the room that it’s sat in with such a wonderful, cosy glow that Dan can’t help but relax the tension in his shoulders and smile as he reaches out to touch the petals with his finger tips.

There’s no note, but it’s fairly obvious who the mysterious plant is from. Phil is outside now, crouched in front of a trestle table of succulents, so Dan opens the door of the bookshop and leans one shoulders against the frame.

“Thanks.”

Phil jumps, glances over his shoulder, blinks at Dan. “Huh?”

“I was just saying thank you. Y’know, for the plant.”

“Oh! You’re welcome. I thought it might help brighten the place up a bit. I’m surprised you haven’t gone full mole by now, working in that sort of lighting.” Phil stands up, brushing soil off his hands onto his yellow apron. He flashes Dan a grateful smile. “That book worked a treat, by the way. Bryony said it helped her patch the Re’em up and track down some people who’ll be able to rehabilitate it until it’s well enough to be out in the wild again.”

Dan grins back at him. “That’s amazing. I’m really glad to hear it.” 

“How much was it, by the way? I’ve been meaning to ask-”

“Forget it,” Dan says, waving his hand. “I’m pretty sure Aelf won’t even notice it’s missing. Besides, being able to see what I’m doing is payment enough.” 

A pleased, pink blush appears on Phil’s high cheekbones. His gaze flitters to the shop sign above Dan’s head and the corner of his mouth twitches up. 

“Who’s Pickwick?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, obviously you’ve got Aelfdene Abernathy, that part makes sense to me,” Phil explains, pointing to the two names that adorn the bookshop. “But I’ve always wondered ever since I was a kid - who’s the other half? Who the hell is Pickwick and where are they?”

“There is no Pickwick,” Dan says with a one-shouldered shrug. Phil’s mouth falls open and he stares at Dan like he’s just discovered Father Christmas isn’t real.

“Seriously?” 

“He made Pickwick up, apparently. Thought two names sounded classier: Flourish and Blotts, Gambol and Japes, that sort of thing.”

Phil sags back against the trestle table, sending the potted succulents wobbling. He shakes his head, dazed, and murmurs, “There’s no Pickwick.”

“Sorry, mate,” Dan replies with a grin. He nods at the sign hanging over Phil’s own shop: a large, leafy tree with the name emblazoned over it in swooping font. “Who’s the original Enchanted Florist?”

“Oh, her name was Cerridwen, I think she opened up the shop in like the seventeen-hundreds. It was passed down the generations, until eventually it landed on my Great-Uncle Francis. He never had any kids, so when he retired it went to his niece, who’s my mum.”

“And now it’s yours.”

“And now it’s mine,” Phil repeats, pressing one hand against the wall and peering up at the hanging sign with a pleased smile. There’s real love there, real pride for his work. Dan supposes it makes sense; where Phil was infamous for occasionally ruining structural elements at Hogwarts, he was also well known for his green fingers and natural talent in Herbology. Dan has clear memories of traipsing the castle grounds on his own during breaks between lessons, peering into the greenhouses and seeing Phil there, potting plants or snipping back leaves all wrapped up in his big yellow and black scarf. Just two lonely misfits trying to find their place in the magical world.

“You’ve not been working there long, have you?” Phil asks, indicating the bookshop. Dan shakes his head. 

“About a year. Although I feel like it might as well belong to me, the amount of times I’m left running the place.” 

“Maybe it should be your name up there, rather than bloody imaginary Pickwick,” Phil says with a smile. Dan laughs, a proper one, and winces as he positions the names together in his head. 

“Abernathy and Howell. Doesn’t really have the same ring to it.”

“Howell and Abernathy, though - that’s pretty ace,” Phil shrugs. A middle-aged couple make their way up the alley, offer Dan and Phil hesitant nods of hello, and duck into the flower shop. Phil sighs and straightens up properly to follow them inside. “I’ll catch you later. Oh, I’ve got some instructions on how to look after the plant somewhere, I’ll bring them round when I find them.”

“Thanks,” Dan replies. They share matching soft smiles, like olive branches extending from one side of the street to the other, meeting in the middle.

○☆☾☆○ ○☆☽☆○ 

Working at Abernathy and Pickwick should come with a disclaimer: _employees must be willing to accept some level of physical pain._ If Dan had known the amount of bruises, scrapes, bumps and general achiness he would endure on a day to day basis, he never would have bothered jumping at the first available magical job he found.

Monday is always the worst for it. That’s stock day, when Dan spends hours sorting through the hoard of books and finding homes for them upon the shelves on the shop floor. It’s inevitable that he comes away with paper cuts on his hands, and yellowing bruises from sharp corners, and tight knots between his shoulder blades that even a hot bath fails to cure. But broken bones - that’s a whole other level entirely.

It’s Dan’s fault, really. He’s half-way up the ladder, a stack of books on a nearby shelf waiting to be sorted, and rather than climb back down and re-adjust his position, Dan decides to stretch as far as he can to deposit a book in the correct place. He rests one foot on a nearby row, convinced it’ll take his weight long enough for him to lean across and slot the volume in his hand into place, and only realises his huge mistake when he’s tumbling through the air.

Dan lands on the wooden floor with a grunt, completely winded; he doesn’t even have the strength to roll out of the way when the overflowing shelf he was standing on comes crashing down, sending a torrent of books to the ground with an almighty bang. The pain doesn't really register, not at first, until a sudden, anxious shout fills the room.

“Dan!”

Then there are hands under his arms, dragging him out from underneath the pile of hard-back literature, and a sudden wave of intense agony sends Dan’s vision blurry for a moment.

“Are you okay?” Phil’s panicked, pale face comes into focus, hovering above Dan, the weak sunlight framing him like he’s a goddamn celestial being. “I was outside, I saw you fall and I-”

“Fuck!” Dan cuts across, his attempt to sit up aborted when pain shoots from the sole of his left foot all the way up his leg. He grips Phil’s forearm and whimpers. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ , my _foot_.”

“Alright, okay, don’t panic. Um… here.” Phil pulls out his wand and flicks his wrist, conjuring up a lumpy padded armchair in the middle of the room. He helps Dan up onto one foot and lowers him carefully onto the seat. “Can you take your shoe off? Let’s have a look.”

Dan’s in tears by the time he’s able to work his trainer off, the white-hot pain sending nauseating jolts through his body. When he sees the sight of his swollen, mottled, purple foot, his breakfast very nearly makes an unwelcome return.

“I think I’ve broken it. _Shit_ ,” Dan hisses, wiping away the tear tracks from his cheeks. Phil, who is on his knees in front of him, rests one tentative, gentle hand against his shin and observes the injury. Then he looks up, his eyes wide and unblinking.

“I can fix it for you if you want?” he says, then shrugs sheepishly. “If you trust me enough to give it a go.”

And really, what choice does Dan have? He _doesn’t_ particularly trust Phil, he knows the Muggle way is safer, but Dan balks at the idea of six weeks in plaster on crutches. So he grits his teeth, clenches his fingernails into the upholstery, and mutters, “Fine.”

Dan knows the spell for fixing minor injuries. _Episkey_ \- pronounced ‘eh-PIS-kee’, hand movement in a hexagonal shape. He’s never felt confident enough to practice it on himself for obvious reasons. But Phil - Phil just gives his wand a quick, silent flourish and Dan’s foot suddenly feels like it’s on fire. He grunts, squeezes his eyes shut against the discomfort, and then it’s as if someone dunks his leg into a welcomed ice bath. The cold dissipates into nothingness: no pain, no residual ache. It’s as if it never even happened.

Dan blinks his eyes open to find Phil peering anxiously up at him, chewing on his bottom lip.

“Okay?”

Dan gives his foot an experimental flex, presses it flat against the floor and puts weight through it. “Yeah. I… fuck, Phil, how did you learn to do that?”

“Lots of practice,” Phil says with a relieved chuckle. He taps his nose with the tip of his wand, where it juts out, Roman-esque. “I’ve broken this more times than I care to admit. Anyway. Let’s get you something sugary, yeah? My mum always says that’s the best thing for shock.”

They end up at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, the closest eating establishment to them, despite the fact that it’s the middle of February and they’re both sat outside wrapped up in jackets and knitwear. Phil has his Hufflepuff scarf around his neck; it looks well-worn, all pulled threads and the odd grubby stain. Well-loved. Dan has no idea where his Gryffindor scarf is. He’s not certain it didn’t get taken to a car boot sale when he moved back into his family home at eighteen, along with his cauldron and brass telescope.

“Can I ask you something?” Phil asks suddenly, digging his spoon into a large scoop of rum and raisin ice cream. Dan nods, so he continues. “Why were you stacking the shelves by hand anyway?”

Dan hums and shrugs. “I didn’t even think about it. I guess it’s just easier for me. Muggle background and all.”

“Really?” Phil looks surprised at this, his eyebrows raised. “What do your family think? About you being a wizard?”

“Oh, um-”

Phil winces, flaps his hands like he’s trying to erase the question from the air. “Sorry, ignore me. I’m too nosy for my own good, everyone always says it.”

“It’s fine,” Dan chuckles. He spoons some of his own strawberry cheesecake ice cream into his mouth, considers the question for a second. “They don’t understand it for the most part. It’s alright when it’s cute little magic tricks - conjuring flowers out of thin air, changing the colour of the tablecloth, that sort of thing - but anything bigger than that kind of freaks them out.” 

He was always the weird kid growing up - loud, flamboyant, quick to anger. The day his magic kicked in all but sealed his fate. He’d stormed off after an argument with his dad, slammed his bedroom door shut and ended up exploding the whole thing until it was nothing but ash and wood chips on the floor. The letter from Hogwarts arrived a month later, on his eleventh birthday. His parents barely made eye contact with him all day - in fact, his dad spent most of it locked away in the conservatory, frantically researching Dan’s condition on their old family desktop computer. Dan knows this because he checked the search history afterwards: _Does my son have magic powers? Is magic real? How to stop my son being magic? How to tell if my son needs psychiatric help?_

“What about you?” Dan asks, desperate to take the onus off him as his back prickles with cold sweat. “Your family are all wizards, I take it?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Phil nods, licking ice cream off his long fingers, because of course he’s gotten it everywhere. It makes sense, Phil coming from an entirely magical upbringing; Dan has never been able to master the art of non-verbal spells, struggles not to do tasks the familiar laborious Muggle way, yet magic seems to flow through Phil’s body like he’s never known anything else. He frowns to himself, taps his spoon against the side of the bowl. “We’re not one of those weird incesty pureblood families, though. There’s definitely Muggle blood along the line somewhere. My brother’s girlfriend, Cornelia, she’s a Muggle and she’s the coolest person I know.”

“I suppose they’re not all bad.”

Phil smirks, looks out onto the Alley. It’s just gone midday; the street is quiet as shoppers start to flag, huddled in the Leaky Caldron or the teashop for a bite to eat and a bit of warmth. Phil glances back at Dan, eyes roaming, until he comes to a stop at the top of the moleskine notebook peeking out of Dan’s coat pocket.

“What’s that for? I’ve seen you writing in it a few times.”

“You _are_ bloody nosey, aren’t you?” Dan says with a surprised laugh. Phil cringes at himself, but grins, the tip of his tongue trapped between his teeth.

“Sorry. It’s a curse. Once I asked my auntie too many questions about her divorce and made her cry.”

Dan snorts and pulls the notebook out. He opens it up on the table in front of them, flicks through a few pages of his own messy handwriting.

“It’s a cheat sheet, I guess, of spells I’m trying to relearn. After school I moved back in with my family and that was it, my whole connection to the magical world was lost. My dad wanted me to go to university, Muggle university, and study something useful like Law. It was shit, obviously - nobody wants to learn about the legal system after seven years of the magical sodding arts. But it was only about eighteen months ago that I actually left and started integrating myself back into this life again. Hence-” Dan gives his notebook a little wave. Phil listens to his rambling with silent interest, then a shy smile creeps up his face.

“I could help you, if you want? If you need someone to practice with. Or on.”

The corners of Dan’s mouth twitch up in response. There’s a warmth in his chest, a tiny flickering ember, despite the cold ice cream sitting in his stomach. He swirls the last dregs in the sundae bowl with his spoon. “That depends. Do you promise not to blow a hole into the side of my shop like you did at school?”

Phil snorts, points his ice cream laden spoon at him. “That was never proved.”

○☆☾☆○ ○☆☽☆○ 

They fall into an easy routine. 

In the morning, before opening time, Phil helps Dan shift a heaving box of books from downstairs to the shop floor and together they put things into their correct places. They tend to work in silence - neither of them are morning people, and it takes a while for their caffeine fix to kick in from the takeaway cups of coffee Dan brings with him. Sometimes they do things by hand, sometimes they use magic, and by the time they’ve gotten to the end of the box they know that’s another space below cleared for them to work.

On their lunch break, either Dan will go to Phil, or Phil will come to Dan (although the dust in the basement sets off Phil’s allergies so badly that most of the time they end up sitting thigh to thigh in the sprawling greenhouse at the back of Phil’s shop). They munch on sandwiches while pouring over spellbooks, and share cake that Phil’s mum has made, and come up with a plan of attack for the night’s training session. 

Then, after hours, when the Alley is dark and quiet, they traipse down underneath Abernathy and Pickwick. Phil conjures up what they need: pillows for dueling spells, teacups to transform into animals, a list of countercurses for when things inevitably go wrong. Over the course of an hour, sometimes two if they lose track of time, Dan practices spells while Phil helps to adjust his technique or offer himself up as a punching bag for an array of jinxes and hexes that Dan’s never had chance to use before. He’s taken to wearing his contacts now, after spending so much time repairing his broken glasses.

And, in the process, Dan remembers that he’s actually a bloody _good_ wizard. He picks things up quickly, and his perfectionist streak means he’s happy to keep practicing the same spell over and over again until he’s cracked it. And with Phil there to cheer from the sidelines and offer his advice, Dan really feels like he’s starting to make genuine, natural progress.

“You need to loosen up a bit,” Phil explains, after Dan starts getting frustrated because he’s struggling to move a book from one corner of the room to the other using the locomotion charm without speaking.

“I _am_ fucking loose.”

“No you’re not. There’s a vein in the side of your neck that keeps twitching whenever you think too hard.” Phil pokes the spot with his finger, which makes Dan cringe and bat his hand away. “It doesn’t matter about the pronunciation or the hand movements - just focus on what your end goal is, and your wand will do the rest. You’ve got to let yourself sort of-”

Phil wiggles his arms about, as though physically demonstrating the art of loosening up through interpretive dance. Then there’s a sudden, almighty crack of noise that makes them both flinch and yelp, as somehow Phil manages to shoot a jet of orange light from his wand and blow a bottle top-sized hole into the stone floor. 

“Okay. Not that loose.”

“Thanks a bunch, Mr. Miyagi.” 

In the small, quiet rest stops between spells, they flop out amongst the pillows and chat. Phil is surprisingly easy to talk to. His fascination with Muggle nerd culture means that, for once, Dan is the expert on a particular field, and he listens with rapt interest as Dan prattles on about PlayStations and anime and _Doctor Who_. They argue at length over who is the best Super Mario character - Peach for Phil, hence his kneazle’s fetching moniker, and Luigi for Dan, because he just feels bad for him. 

“I’m a master of Mario Kart,” Phil boasts one night, wand pointed up as he draws lazy spirals of blue sparks in the air. “I’ve never been beaten.”

“Oh yeah? What do you do, play against the computer on 50cc? I _don’t_ think,” Dan scoffs. Phil leans across the pillows to poke Dan in his side.

“Big talk, buster. You’ll have to come round to mind some time and I’ll show you.”

“Hm. Dunno if I could cope with how bad I’d feel when I beat you,” Dan replies, but he wriggles against the cushions as that weird, tingly feeling builds at the base of his spine again. It’s been happening more and more frequently. Mostly when Phil stands behind him, close enough that Dan can feel his chest against his back and his breath tickling his ear, as he clasps one hand around Dan’s and adjusts his wand into the correct position.

Even thinking about that makes his limbs feel jittery, so Dan lifts his own wand into the air and casts red sparks to join Phil’s. Phil turns to face him, beaming.

“Hey! You didn’t even say anything that time.” 

That night when Dan gets home to his tiny flat, he stretches onto his tiptoes to grab the cardboard box that’s been gathering dust on top of his wardrobe for the last year and a half. He sits on the floor and rifles through it, trying to push back the sadness making its way up from his chest. In the box are mementoes from childhood, crap he’s thrown in here over the decades and never really found a home for: old Pokémon cards, photos of him as a kid with his grandparents, a medal he was given when he played on his primary school football team. His dad had beamed so hard at that awards ceremony his face could have split wide open.

Dan clears his aching throat, scrubs at his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie. Thankfully, he finds what he’s looking for so he can close the box back up again.

His old Game Boy Colour, fluorescent green and covered in stickers, complete with a handful of games, a charger and one of those silly little LED lights that plugs into the side. Dan smiles to himself and stuffs everything into his bag, ready for the morning.

“I’ve got something for you,” Dan says with a smirk, drumming his hands excitedly on the countertop after he bounds into the flower shop at lunchtime the next day. Phil blinks back at him, a liquorice wand hanging out of his mouth. Dan pulls a face in disgust. “Do you _ever_ stop eating?”

Phil finishes the rest of the sweet and shakes his head. “Not if I can help it. What have you got for me? A present?” 

“Maybe,” Dan says, whacking the top of Phil’s hand because he’s getting awfully grabby with the bag hanging off Dan’s shoulder. “To say thank you for letting me do unspeakable things to you every night.” 

Phil chokes seemingly on air, and the tip of his ears go pink. “Oh stop. I bet you say that to all the boys.”

“Only the ones who let me do the jelly-legs curse on them five times in a row.”

They wander through into the greenhouse. From the outside it looks like the sort of simple glass structure you’d find in the backyard of any aspiring gardener, but inside it seems to sprawl on forever. Rows upon rows of plants, each in their own temperature-controlled environment; there’s a tropical rainforest section with warm condensation permanently dripping down the walls, and a dry, acrid desert area full of cacti and Joshua trees. Phil leads him to his own alcove, just next to the arctic tundra, which is thankfully free of weather spells. 

“Right,” Phil says as soon as they sit down, hands open. “Gimme.”

Dan rolls his eyes but smirks and produces the console from the depths of his bag. Phil’s eyes go as wide as Galleons, and he stares up at Dan like he’s just presented him with the Koh-i-Noor.

“Oh my God,” he whispers, tilting it carefully like it could shatter in his hands, rather than being made from durable plastic. “ _Dan._ ”

“Shut up. It’s only a Game Boy,” Dan snorts, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t delighted with the reaction. They sit pressed up against each other, working their way through Sonic Adventure 7 and chattering in loud, animated voices, as though they’re a couple of rowdy teenagers rather than fully-grown adults with fully-grown adult jobs. In fact, the only reason why they stop is because Peach starts yowling and scratching at the greenhouse door.

“Shit,” Phil hisses, frowning. “She only does that when there’s someone in the shop. Hey, we could play a bit more tonight? A reward for letting you beat me into a pulp again?” 

He smiles expectantly, hand held out to return the Game Boy to Dan. 

“Sure. Make sure you bring it round, then,” Dan replies, taking the console off him and placing it neatly back on his lap. Phil stares down at it, confused, as if waiting for a punchline.

“You want me to… keep it?”

“Yup. You’ll get more use out of it - it’ll only gather dust at my place. There are more games too, and it’s not backlit so I brought a portable one with me. Only, shit, I’m sorry, sometimes I forget you’re a wizard and you can just-”

The words die on Dan’s lips because Phil suddenly leans across to close the gap between them and places a quick, chaste kiss on the rosy patch blooming across Dan’s cheek. He moves away, flashes Dan a nervous smile, rubs his fingertips into his palm.

“Um. Thank you.” 

“Don’t mention it,” Dan replies quietly, like the wind has been knocked out of him. 

Ah. _Fuck_.

○☆☾☆○ ○☆☽☆○ 

It starts off small, because these things always do. 

One morning, Phil comes in looking particularly rumpled: his hair is haphazardly pushed back off his forehead like he hasn’t had time to style it into its usual pristine quiff, and his black speckled jumper is almost hanging off one shoulder like he pulled it on last minute. He gives Dan a sleepy smile, pushes his long fingers under his glasses to rub his eyes, and takes the coffee Dan’s offering him with his other hand.

“You’re a Godsend,” he croons, and Dan realises with a jolt deep in his stomach that Phil’s early morning voice is so much deeper and raspier than his customer service lilt.

There are other moments too, moments that make Dan feel stupid and pathetically teenage. Like when they’re stacking books and their hands brush together as they reach into the box at the same time, and Dan’s skin is left feeling like it’s burning with electricity. Or the night Dan finally manages to disarm Phil’s wand without speaking, and they both cheer and punch the air and throw their arms around each other in a strong, giggly, excitable hug, until they catch up with themselves and shuffle away with bashful smiles and heated cheeks. 

And then there's the hazy memory, deep within Dan's subconscious, that has started to bubble up in his dreams. 

Dan is thirteen, sat in the study hall on his own while students mill around him in groups and chatter in quiet, tittering voices. Snow drifts and dances past the windows, building up at the bottom of the panes to mask the winter landscape outside. It should be cold in this large, drafty part of the castle but there’s a pleasant, cosy warmth in the air that’s making the words on Dan’s page swim before his eyes. 

When he looks up, there’s a boy sat at the other end of the room, facing Dan. He’s got his head bowed over his own assignments, leg jiggling under the desk. Dan doesn’t think he’s ever spoken to him before, but he’s pretty sure he’s seen him sitting at the Hufflepuff table during meals, or trailing around after other Seventh year students, or pottering in the greenhouse. He’s got inky black hair now - Dan could have sworn it used to be a mousy brown colour - and it’s so long that it hangs about his face as he works, shielding him from view. 

As Dan watches, peeking up from beneath his own floppy mop of hair, the boy finishes his work and stands up, sweeping his fringe to the side with a flick of his head. His face is clear and pale, all odd, sharp angles, and he’s tall and willowy beneath his black school robes. Looking at him makes Dan feel stupid and childish; he’s still chubby-cheeked with youth, still unused to his own body, face starting to bloom with painful spots at the side of his nose and beneath his lower lip.

He doesn’t quite know why, but he continues to stare as the boy slopes towards the door near Dan. He’s got his head bowed even now, like he’s trying to make himself seem smaller, more invisible. But then, at the last minute, the boy looks up. Looks at Dan. Blinks for a moment, like a rabbit in headlights, as though terrified by the concept of being perceived by another person.

And then the corners of his mouth twitch up into a small, soft smile.

Dan wakes up with his heart in his throat, his sheets twisted around his legs, and the semi-lucid thought that he should probably do something about all this.

As he’s counting up the meagre amount of bronze and silver coins in the register after closing time, Dan concocts a plan: after they’ve finished their nightly spell practice session, Dan will subtly hint that it’s Friday night and his local bar do amazing 2-for-1 cocktails, if Phil fancies grabbing a drink to celebrate all their hard work. Casual.

It all goes up in smoke, however, when Phil comes hurtling through the front door, pink-cheeked and glistening with sweat, and gasps out, “Dan, I’m sorry, I know we’ve got plans but you _need_ to come with me.”

Dan expects the worst, naturally. There’s been a break-in and somebody has kicked over every pot in the shop. One of the plants Phil was tending to is poisonous and it’s killed Peach stone dead. Phil has somehow managed to ruin the Game Boy. What he’s not expecting is to be led across the Alley, through the shop floor, out the back and towards the farthest corner of the greenhouse.

They come to a halt in front of a tall, spindly plant with wide, delicate leaves and a single closed flower at the top. Dan blinks at it, bemused.

“Uh. It’s… beautiful?”

“Do you know what this is?” Phil asks, gazing up at the plant in awe. 

“I’m assuming it’s not a sunflower.”

“ _Flore Luna_. Literally translates to ‘Moon Bloom’,” Phil explains. “It’s probably the most important thing we have here. There’s only a few dozen of them left in the world.”

“Huh.” Dan squints up at the plant. It’s… fine. As far as plants go. If Dan walked past it in the park or a garden centre, he probably wouldn’t look twice at it. But Phil’s eyes are so wide it’s like he’s beholding the eighth wonder of the natural world. Dan digs his elbow into Phil’s side. “You’re going to have to clue me in here, bub, I feel like I’m missing something.”

“The Flore Luna can live for a thousand years, provided it’s looked after properly. We’ve had this one for about four hundred years now, I think, give or take a decade or two.”

“Impressive. You Lesters are a green fingered bunch.” Dan jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Can we go now? As much as Tudor-era plans are titillating for the soul, I found a spell to conjure a fountain of wine that I want to try out. A fountain of _wine_ , Phil.”

Phil smiles bashfully at him, tugs at the sleeve of his jumper. “Sorry. It’s just that this flower only blooms once every century, on a full moon. It’s supposed to happen tonight, and I got so excited that I had to find someone else to tell. You don’t have to stay, obviously - I forget that not everyone is a big horticultural nerd like me.”

Dan deflates, his shoulder knocking against Phil’s own. Well. Now that he knows that Phil, in all his eagerness and exhilaration, chose Dan to share in this once-in-a-lifetime moment that means the world to him - Dan sort of has to stay.

“Once every century, huh?” he says, reaching out to gently rub the plant’s gossamer leaves between his fingertips. “So what time is it supposed to bloom?”

“Could be anywhere between now and sunrise.” Phil bares his teeth in a sheepish grin. “Sorry. You really can leave at any time.”

“Nah, I’m invested now. Although this had better be bloody special. If that plant doesn’t do a full rendition of ‘Cell Block Tango’, I’ll be thoroughly disappointed.”

Phil laughs, then pulls his wand out of his pocket and gives it a wave. Behind them appears a forest green velvet loveseat. Phil frowns, scratches at his temple with his wand tip.

“Whoops. I thought it’d be bigger than that.”

He glances at Dan, one eyebrow raised, almost _daring_ him to say something. Instead Dan plays him at his own game - he shrugs, drops himself onto the tiny sofa, and pats the space next to him.

“Are we going to watch this old fucker or what?”

Phil smirks and perches next to him. It really is too small; they’re fused together from shoulder down to ankle, and Dan can feel frissons of electricity pulse between every single place their skin meets. It’s clearly affecting Phil too, judging by how stiffly he’s holding himself, like he’s too scared to relax any further. 

Dan decides to break the tension in the best way he knows how. He pokes a finger into Phil’s thigh and whispers conspiratorially, “Do _you_ know how to conjure up a fountain of wine?”

“Oh God, yeah. How do you think I got through my twenties?”

They drink red wine out of tin mugs and pass the time reminiscing on the past. Or rather, Phil reminisces and Dan listens. He doesn’t particularly want to dwell on his own childhood, as much as it might intrigue Phil, and he has nothing remarkable to comment on about his schooling days. Instead he just sits back and smiles softly as Phil rhapsodies about what it was like to grow up in a magical household. He tells the story of how his dad tried to teach him how to fly on a broomstick when he was ten, only he got his lefts and rights so badly mixed up that he ended up hurtling towards the A56. And how his mum made a colossal multi-tier cake for his seventh birthday, which featured fondant dancing animals and miniature fireworks.

“Only nobody came to my party because I was a bit of a social outcast, so I had to eat the whole thing myself. Nothing ever changes, huh?” Phil snorts. His full lips are tinged purple from the wine, and he lolls his head back against the loveseat so that his long, pale neck is on full show. “God, I need to stop drinking or I’ll fall asleep before this bloody flower does its thing.”

Dan checks his watch. It’s coming up to nine. “It is definitely supposed to be tonight, right? You didn’t misread your hundred year calendar, did you?”

“ _No,_ Daniel, I’m pretty sure I’d know if-”

But Phil falls silent and his head snaps up, because suddenly, in the darkness that has fallen around them, a faint, pearly light has started to glow within the closed petals. 

A hand scrabbles for Dan’s, interlocks their fingers, squeezes hard. Dan squeezes back just as tightly.

Because it’s _beautiful_. The Flore Luna begins to awaken from its hundred year slumber, one large petal at a time fanning out until it is completely and perfectly on display. The flower itself forms a round, iridescent disk, the inside of each petal glowing silver so brightly that together it looks like a full moon glimmering in the night’s sky.

And then there’s music. It could be happening somewhere far off into the distance, but it could just as easily be happening inside Dan’s head: a choral harmonising, so haunting yet so uplifting that all of the hairs on Dan’s arm stand on end. The singing gets louder, swells up until it engulfs all other sound, and the flower sways gently to and fro despite the stillness of the greenhouse. The moon ripples as if it’s being viewed from underwater. Dan can only stare, unblinking, gripped by sudden fear that if he dared look away for even a moment, it would all fade away into nothingness. Minutes pass, or maybe hours, or maybe a whole hundred years go by. Dan isn’t sure he minds much either way.

As quickly as the flower began to uncurl, it all starts to end. One petal falls, drifting through the air; as it does so, the silvery light fades into inky blue-blackness, peppered with shimmering flecks like stars. Another follows, and then another, until all but one petal remains and the singing has quietened to a dull murmur in Dan’s ears. Then the final petal drops.

And it’s over. There’s darkness once more, and silence that almost echoes. 

Dan lets out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding in one long, shaky rush. He’s still clutching Phil’s hand so tightly that his nails are digging into Phil’s skin, but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. Neither of them can speak; the only sounds breaking the ringing silence are their twin trembling gasps of air.

“I… That was…” Dan tries to articulate, but the words won’t come. Phil gives his hand another squeeze and lets out a faint, watery laugh. When Dan turns to face him, Phil is wiping away glistening tear tracks from his cheeks.

“I know.” Phil finally releases his hand, and lets out a long, low groan as he scrubs at the remaining evidence that he’d been crying. “God, I didn’t think… that it would be like that. I’ve read people’s recounts of watching a Flore Luna on blooming night, but Jesus. That was-”

“Magic,” Dan finishes, the word tumbling out of his mouth before he has chance to think. Phil’s eyes meet his. They’re glistening in the faint light, and the tip of his nose is pink, and when he swallows his Adam’s apple bobs temptingly in his throat.

“Just think,” Phil whispers. “We could be the only people in the world to have seen that.” 

“The only people in the whole, wide world for the next century,” Dan whispers back. 

They blink at each other. And then Dan moves forward, or maybe Phil does, or maybe the both do; either way, they meet in the middle, and Dan’s eyes slide shut as he revels in the taste of red wine and salty tears on Phil’s lips. He tilts his head to the side to deepen the kiss, pushes forward slightly so that Phil falls against the arm of the sofa. Hands come up to cup the back of his head, long fingers burying themselves in his curls, and teeth graze against his lower lip, tugging gently, hinting as something more to come. When they finally break away for air, Dan’s forehead rests against Phil’s and all they can do is let out tired huffs of laughter as they get their breath back.

“We should probably leave,” Phil murmurs. “You get all sorts of weirdos around here at night.” 

“What, like people who sit around for hours waiting for a fucking flower to open up?” 

Phil locks up the shop, sagging slightly into Dan - a combination of too much red wine, too little food, and the sheer enormity of Mother Earth’s power. As they walk up the Alley, Phil tucks his hand into the crook of Dan’s arm and squeezes his elbow.

“I know it's late, but… d'you want to come back to my place? I could order a pizza in or something - my treat as I made you wait so long without dinner. And I could destroy you at Mario Kart.”

“Wow. That one hell of a proposition,” Dan snorts, knocking his elbow into Phil’s ribs. “Sure. Sounds good.” 

They head towards the pub, and the brick wall opening, when Phil seems to remember himself. “We could apparate there? If you want to, that is.”

Dan tilts his head back to feel the crisp night air on his heated cheeks. The full moon glistens back at them, huge and silver in the blackness of space. Dan smiles up at it.

“Why don't we catch the bus?”

fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finito! I hope you enjoyed it - let me know what you think, I always love to hear from people! And please do come and say hello over on tumblr: [strawberry-sunflower](https://strawberry-sunflower.tumblr.com/) (and feel free to send me any fic ideas if you have them!!) <3


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